A Question of Protocol

A Question of Protocol is a esolang created by User:Yayimhere where its all just substacks, n' more substacks, yea stacks are very usefull when nested for some reason

syntax

these are the commands:

• $x: pop top of stack. if stack underflow goto line x.
• #: push substack to stack.
• }: move the top of the stack to the bottom of the stack and { rotates the other way.
• =: push a sub-substack to the top substack of the stack.
• (x): = but with nesting x.
• !x: pop the top of the top substack. if empty goto line x.
• (x[y]): !y but with nesting x.
• *: run top of stack as a macro also popping it.
• h: halt.
• %: duplicate top of stack.
• ^: print top of stack as an ascii char(see ints) also popping it.
• ?: print but user INPUT.

all nesting values start at the outermost stack(just the stack) has a value of 0

macros

(here i will be using python's list format where the end of the list is the front of the stack)
this is the structure(in a substack):

[[[cmd1][[arg1][arg2]...]][[cmd2][[arg1][arg2]...]]]

where each cmd i run in order.
here numbers are represented with how many stacks there are in a substack. so for 5 it would be [][][][][]. here are the commands:

• $x: cmd(nesting number): 2, arg1: x
• #: cmd: 1
• }: cmd: 3
• }: cmd: 5
• =: cmd: 7
• (x): cmd: 4, arg1: x
• (x[y]): cmd: 6, arg1: x, arg2: y
• !x: cmd: 8, arg1: x
• *: cmd: 9
• h: cmd: 11
• %: cmd: 13

ints

ints can be represented like this:

• lets say we have int n
• as a substack with n many lists in it
• now we have a integer

example

Infinite loop:

$0

or using macros:

#=(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)=(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3)%*

which creates macro:

%*

Computational class

A Question of Protocol is trivially Turing complete via translation from Noddity:

s -> }
i -> =
d*n -> !n1
n -> space
g*n -> #!n! with the rule that line n must start with $0
h -> h

Note that x*n notates x repeated n times, and n1 is n minus one.

See also

• Do Minsk Family